


Roses in an Ocean

by BlueRoanSky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Not really canon-divergent, but not canon-compliant either, somewhat ooc, this does not have a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 10:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10989222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRoanSky/pseuds/BlueRoanSky
Summary: Murphy is splintered glass and glittering ice--dangerous, broken, and cold.





	Roses in an Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about because of the very last paragraph, which popped into my head when I was trying to go back to sleep. So, instead of sleeping, I wrote this. I apologize if it seems to jump around a lot or if it doesn't make sense. It was written with two hours of sleep and too much soda. 
> 
> If I didn't tag something that I should've, please let me know. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! 
> 
>  
> 
> _(Not beta-read)_

Murphy is like splintered glass and glittering ice—dangerous, broken, and cold. He sews himself together with the finest thread, trying to keep the pieces from falling away. 

Away, away, oh no he’s lost a part of himself but no one will ever care. 

He walks with an abyss at his back that beckons and calls to him. It wants him to run and jump and try to fly, even though his wings were lost long ago, if they ever even existed to begin with. There are times when he wants to listen—when he faces the abyss and dares it to take him—but it’s life’s cruel joke saved just for him that he’ll be denied everything he ever wants, even if what he wants is what everyone else wants. 

So when he lets the abyss swallow him with wrists bleeding hope gone his future is done and over there’s no more for him—it spits him back out with less remorse than a starving wolf chasing down an injured deer. 

It’s worse after because all the wrong people know and none of the right people care and he didn’t know he could feel more alone than he did before, but he does, and it tears and rips at him with a sharper pain than any razor blade could ever manage.  


 

Bellamy is burning heat and roaring flames. Murphy watches him from a distance because he doesn’t dare go too close lest he gets burned. Bellamy is alive and knows it; he’s a force of nature and shows it; he’s a constant presence in Murphy’s thoughts, like his energy is contagious and it’s infected Murphy’s mind and won’t let him sleep. He lies awake to stare at the ceiling and wonder how Bellamy does it; how he goes through life—this fucked up life and this fucked up high school—and comes out on top never better he’s a fucking gold medalist give him a gold star. 

Bellamy is everything, has everything, and Murphy can’t even find the air to breathe anymore. Bellamy’s flames sucked the oxygen away, leaving Murphy choking and suffocating and struggling for breath in his wake. Around Bellamy, Murphy feels his hard edges melting and he thinks he could maybe be someone else, someone nicer, someone stronger. 

But fire doesn’t make ice stronger. It melts and becomes weak and it’s stupid to think Bellamy could be the cure to all Murphy’s problems stupid stupid will never happen give up now because Bellamy doesn’t even see him.  


 

They attack him in the school hallways, claiming that he jumped their friend and this is their payback and he should’ve seen this coming. It doesn’t matter that he knows he didn’t do it and it doesn’t matter that they know he didn’t do it because they aren’t attacking him to be fair. They just want someone to beat on and they barely need a reason to do it. They just need a target and Murphy is a target—always has been, always will be. 

The herd mentality takes over and they all join in and don’t let up until someone is pulling them away from him. His vision is too hazy to make out who came to his rescue, and being honest, he doesn’t even care because the abyss is welcoming him to its embrace and he goes gladly, even if his stay will be just as temporary as the last time.  


 

He wakes in a bed in the nurse’s office. He wastes no time sitting up, though he knows it’s a mistake even before the headache hits him like a mallet and his abused muscles scream protests that he ignores. No one is around, so he stands up, sways, almost falls. He catches himself on the bed, manages to stay standing on the second attempt, finds his backpack, and walks out like he’s supposed to. No one stops to question him and he chooses to think of it as a positive thing instead of seeing it for what it really is: no one caring what he does because no one cares about him. 

He pauses to lean against a wall outside, his breathing too heavy, his body aching and throbbing, his head pounding with each too-quick heartbeat. He’s dizzy and nauseous and he has no idea how he’s going to walk the two miles home like this, but he’ll have to figure it out regardless because he’s the only one looking out for himself in the world. It was made clear to him that no one else was looking out for him or would look out for him; they only look out for the ones they deem worthy of being saved and he’s not on that list.  


 

He stays home from school for the next couple days and spends most of his time in bed. His mother cares for him in her own customary manner: yelling at him in a drunken stupor until she’s dragged away by one of her many “boyfriends.” Murphy pulls his blanket over his head in response, and if the “boyfriend” comes back to his room and locks the door and gets into bed with him and whispers that his mother is passed out she’ll never know if they never tell her this can just be their little secret— 

Murphy just closes his eyes and finds the darkness in his mind that isn’t as encompassing as the abyss, but is enough to swallow his thoughts and feelings about what’s happening and how much he doesn’t want it and how little that matters to anyone. Later, when he’s alone, he’ll be racked with shivers he can’t control and he won’t be able to breathe even though he’ll be breathing too fast and he’ll be unable to block out the memories no matter how much he wants to… 

But that’s later and it’s not later yet, which means he can just hide in the darkness and pretend pretend pretend that it isn’t happening it isn’t happening it

isn’t

happening.  


 

He goes back to school sooner than he wants to only because he can’t stay at home any longer if he wants to keep his last shred of sanity and control. Everyone ignores him as usual, but then Bellamy finds him, and just his presence is enough to make Murphy flinch from the force of it. He spent too long at home this time. His skin is still crawling and burning; phantom touches skittering over his body that feel so real, he has to make sure there’s no one touching him. If there was ever a time when Murphy would choose to be close to Bellamy, this wouldn’t be it. 

But Bellamy is oblivious to Murphy’s discomfort, though he seems concerned about something, and Murphy has spent too long pretending everything is okay to be able to stop now, so he doesn’t curl into himself for the protection it offers and he doesn’t run away. He suppresses an involuntary shudder and tries to remember how to breathe properly while he waits for Bellamy to just say something stop standing there staring with those eyes it hurts to think he might care. 

“How are you doing?” Bellamy finally asks, and the words are like a sedative, releasing the band that’s been wound tight around Murphy’s chest and allowing him to relax if just for a moment. 

Because he can only relax for a moment before his walls go back up. 

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Murphy snaps, his words harsh and ungrateful even though he doesn't intend it. 

There’s a flash of irritation across Bellamy’s face and Murphy knows he’s already ruined everything with just two sentences. “No need to be hostile,” Bellamy says. “I’m just asking because I helped pull those guys off you the other day and you were in bad shape.” 

So Bellamy was one of the people that helped Murphy that day. Knowing that changes everything and nothing, and Murphy still asks, “Why do you even care?” Because even though he’s already ruined it, he can’t help pushing until it’s all disappeared burnt to a crisp that should be easy because Bellamy is made of fire. 

But for a moment, Bellamy is ice; his eyes couldn’t be colder. “You’re right,” he says, Murphy’s own splintered glass in his voice. “I don’t.” 

And he turns and walks away and it doesn’t even matter that Murphy is made of ice because he feels himself burning, flesh melting from his bones, until there’s nothing left of him, watching Bellamy leave without even a glance behind him.  


 

In truth, it would never work. Murphy is splintered glass and glittering ice, and Bellamy is burning heat and roaring flames. Murphy knows they could never work together because they are too opposite, too antagonistic; it’s too easy for them to hurt each other. The ice is the only defense Murphy has, and if he lets Bellamy melt it with his heat, there would be only the splintered glass beneath—sharp enough to cut at a single touch. So it would never work, if he let Bellamy try to care about him. Better for Murphy to just let himself fade into the background until he’s finally gone and forgotten. 

Better for Murphy to just stay silent and let everyone leave him behind. 

And if anyone could’ve heard his every thought, they might’ve called him a poet or labeled him an author as they let their memories of him drift away. How sad that he could’ve said so much, they might say; but his many thoughts dropped like roses into an ocean, swallowed whole and without a trace, so sad that he had nothing left in the end and even his words failed him, too.


End file.
